$43.5m discovered in flat in Lagos, Nigeria linked sacked Director General

A Nigerian judge has ordered the seizure of a flat linked to the former head of the country’s National Intelligence Agency after more than $43m in cash was found during an anti-corruption raid.

Judge Saliu Seidu, sitting at the federal high court in Lagos, said the apartment in the upmarket Ikoyi area of the city should be temporarily forfeited to the government, pending any challenge within 14 days.

Acting on a tip-off, agents from Economic and Financial Crimes Commission raided the property on 12 April this year and discovered just under $43.5m (£33.1m).

They also found £27,800 as well as 23.2m naira (£49,600), the court was told.

Documents established the flat was bought in 2015 by Folashade Oke, the wife of Ayodele Oke, who at the time was director general of the NIA.

It was alleged she bought the property using $1.66m from government funds to which her husband had access.

President Muhammadu Buhari was elected in 2015 on a promise to cut endemic corruption in government and has vowed to recover what he said were “mind-boggling” sums of stolen public money.

Oke, who had been suspended for keeping an unauthorised stash of cash in a private home, was sacked last week along with the country’s most senior civil servant, Babachir Lawal.

Lawal was accused of awarding deals for reconstruction in areas of north-east Nigeria hit by Boko Haram’s Islamist insurgency to companies in which he had a personal interest.

Buhari’s handling of the two cases has been seen as a litmus test for the extent of his anti-corruption drive, given that most of those arrested and charged so far have been high-profile members of the main opposition.

The Oke case was adjourned until 30 November.

Guardian

Video - Nigeria partners with China to start business exchange program

Nigeria has partnered with China in opening a way for small and medium sized businesses to interact through an exchange program. According the country's statistics bureau, there are more Chinese construction companies operating in Nigeria, than anywhere else in Africa. And expansion is expected in other sectors too. But some experts argue Africa's most populous country must do more to protect its local industries.

70% percent of medication in circulation in Nigeria are fake

At least 70 per cent of pharmaceutical products circulating in Nigeria are fake, says Andrew Nevin, the Financial Services Advisory Leader and Chief Economist, Project Blue PWc Nigeria.

Mr. Nevin said this in his keynote address at the opening of the 90th Annual National Conference of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) in Umuahia, the Abia capital.

According to him, Africa records at least 100,000 deaths, arising from fake drug-related ailments, annually.

He, therefore, underscored the need for the federal government, National Agency for Foods and Drugs Administration and Control, NAFDAC, and other relevant agencies to intensify the war agianst fake and counterfeit drugs in the country.

“This will go a long way in reducing the harmful effects of the menace on the citizenry and the nation’s economy.”

Mr. Nevin expressed delight that Nigeria had achieved “significant progress” in reducing sexually transmitted diseases and infant mortality.

He, however, expressed concern that Nigeria’s population had been on a steady rise while its Gross Domestic Product is on the downward trend.

In his speech to declare the week-long event open, Governor Okezie Ikpeazu also tasked NAFDAC to check the perceived abuse in the certification of traditional medicines.

Mr. Ikpeazu called on the agency to withdraw “its stamp of authority from all producers herbal medicines that it cannot vouch for their efficacy.

“I am worried at the use of herbal drugs. NAFDAC has not helped matters also.

“It is amazing to see different concoctions with label from NAFDAC and to an average Nigerian, once you see NAFDAC number on a product, it means a seal of authority.”

He appealed to the federal government to regulate the importation of drugs as a means of encouraging indigenous pharmaceutical firms.

He also urged drug manufacturers in the country to take steps to make their products affordable to the ordinary Nigerian.

In an address of welcome, the National President of PSN, Ahmed Yakasai, said that the association had embarked on an advocacy for the local manufacturing of pharmaceuticals.

Mr. Yakasai, however, underscored the need for governments at all levels to create the enabling environment for the pharmaceutical sector in Nigeria to thrive, stressing that “PSN believes in Nigeria-made medicines.”

He mentioned the donation of drugs worth over N50 million to Internally Displaced Persons in the North-east, among others, as some of the key achievements of the association under his watch.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that major highlights of the conference were the conferment of awards to some eminent Nigerians, including Ikpeazu, the unveiling of new products and products exhibition.

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Video - Nigerian banks head to court over plan to forfeit unclaimed funds

Commercial banks are lobbying the Attorney General's office to back down on the government's plan to seize money from accounts with no Bank Verification Numbers. A high court in Abuja has ordered the forfeiture of all funds in accounts owned by corporates, government agencies and individuals without B-V-Ns. The order is, however, not final yet. Clients affected have 14 days to claim ownership and show cause why the amounts in their accounts should not be forfeited to the government.

26 Nigerian women among the dead found on boat headed to Italy

Italian prosecutors have commenced investigations into the deaths of 26 Nigerian women whose bodies were recovered at sea, BBC reported on Monday.

The victims, who are mostly teenagers, aged 14-18, are believed to have been sexually abused and murdered as they attempted to cross the Mediterranean.

Following several rescues, their bodies were discovered in a Spanish warship, Cantabria, carrying 375 migrants and the dead women; 23 of whom women had been on a rubber boat with 64 other people.

Italian media reported that the women’s bodies were being kept in a refrigerated section of the warship. Most of the 375 survivors brought to Salerno were sub-Saharan Africans from Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana, The Gambia and Sudan.

Among the 375 survivors were 90 women, eight of them pregnant, 52 children and some Libyan men and women on board.

People-smuggling gangs charge each migrant about $6,000 (£4,578) to get to Italy, $4,000 of which is for the trans-Saharan journey to Libya and many migrants have reported violence, including torture and sexual abuse, by the gangs.

Five migrants are being questioned in the southern port of Salerno.

Thousands of Nigerians travel through the desert to Libya from where they try to cross the Mediterranean to Italy seeking better life.

Hundreds of such Nigerians, who could not make the crossing, end up getting trapped in Libya with many of them eventually returning to Nigeria with the help of the International Organisation for Migration.

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